


An Unorthodox Approach To Battalion Heath Care

by ArwenLune



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Gen, Let me bring that up with Godfather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all in a day's work. Tim Bryan unfucks a Captain's shoulder, and shares his views on sustained combat health care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Unorthodox Approach To Battalion Heath Care

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, so squirmy about the whole Real People aspect. Anything I write about Generation Kill is based on the fictionalised characters we see in the series. I have not read the book, or anything about the people those characters were based on, and I don't want to. This is fiction all the way.

He was sitting on the hood of the humvee with Tim Bryan, commiserating about the tragedy of the one competent officer in Bravo being under fire from command - well, silently commiserating, anyway. Doc was good like that. Once they'd established the mutual sentiment, they'd just shared space in comfortable silence. Colbert liked Ray, he really did, but it was nice to have a break.

Captain Patterson had come over to Bravo's section of the camp, straight for the humvee they were camped out on.

"Sir." Patterson was the only officer apart from Lt. Fick that the both of them could sincerely show respect for.

"Lads," he nodded.

"Anything we can do for you?"

"My corpsman said I should ask you about this," the captain began to Doc.

Tim's sharp eyes took in his form, critically assessing the man.

"Your shoulder?"

Colbert didn't really see anything off about the captain, but he supposed that's why Tim was the corpsman. He looked at all of them that way, constantly assessing if 'I'm fine' really meant 'I'm not functioning'. Nobody got beyond 'fine under the circumstances' right now.

"If you could have a look?"

Tim slipped to the front of the hood, feet down on the front grille, and gestured for the captain to stand in front of him. They were sheltered enough here, the humvee behind a sand dune, so Colbert kept watch while the captain dropped his flack jacket and MOPP coat. Tim had him make a few different motions.

"Been dislocated?"

"Couple of times when I was younger, but not the last few years."

"Off with the shirt, sir," he gestured. The captain struggled out of it.

Tim sucked air through his teeth. There were angry purple bruises all along the line of the shoulder.

"That's the sound my car mechanic makes back home when he's about to say it'll get expensive, doc," the captain grinned.

"That's me - just keepin' people running," Tim said absently, guiding the captain to stand with his back toward him and probing the shoulder. "You sure this didn't dislocate, even very briefly? A hard jolt or yank on your arm, anything like that?"

"Actually, yes - I was leaning on the windowframe when we bashed through a... let's be charitable and call it a pothole."

"If that's the one we went through, Ray called it a baby ravine, sir," Colbert interjected. They chuckled.

"That might do it," Tim said "the muscles and tendons are all cramped up, trying to keep the whole thing in place."

"Anything you can do to un-fuck it?"

"Well... normally I'd give oral muscle relaxants and painkillers and tell you to rest it for at least a week."

All three of them snorted. Yeah, that was out.

"I can give you a muscle relaxant shot in the deltoid," he thumbed a spot on the shoulder and the captain grunted in pain. "That oughta at least ease it off. But, and I realise I'm recommending the impossible here, you should rest it as well as you can. A muscle relaxant will help with the pain, but it increases the danger of a repeat - and the next time will go easier, and probably damage more. We do CASEVAC people for dislocations."

"I'm fucked if I'm going to be CASEVACed because my humvee went through a pothole, corpsman."

"You're also fucked if you get shot because you can't lift your weapon, captain," Tim said dryly.

"Damnit," Patterson conceded.

"Brad, could you grab my pack? I can see what I can stabilise with tape..." Tim mused.

When Colbert had retrieved it, he gave the captain a shot in the deltoid muscle, and then began massaging the surrounding muscles. It wasn't pleasant, judging by the harsh breathing of the captain.

"Fuck, Doc. Don't give up the dayjob to become a masseur," the captain gritted out.

Tim barked a laugh. "I make this pleasant, and suddenly there's twenty guys standing here with sore necks and shoulders."

"That bad?"

"Hell, you could send a physiotherapist per company and they'd still be busy round the clock. Part of it's legit - stress, sleeping in awkward positions, digging, carrying gear - and part of it is just plain old skin hunger."

"Skin hunger?"

"Physically connecting, being touched - it's what makes people feel human," Tim shrugged, and they understood the unspoken 'and there isn't much humanity to go around here'. He tore off a length of tape and smoothed it on the captain's shoulder. "Hell," he took another length of tape and placed it crosswise on the first, "if they weren't all so obsessively homophobic, you could institute a daily group hug, that would do it for a lot of these guys."

"I'll be sure to pass the idea on to Godfather at the next command meeting."

The explosion of laughter drew more than a few stares.


End file.
